Archive for Classes for homeschoolers

Welcome to the 2014-2015 College Prep English Class at Excellence In Education which will meet on Thursdays at 2:30 in the large classroom at EIE starting Thursday Sept. 11. To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

This class is open to students of any age who would like to undertake the study of formal college-level English and is intended to provide an academic environment that is comfortable for students with a wide range of learning styles, from those who prefer a traditional classroom environment to those who prefer to do all their work online and everyone in between. Even the use of pencil and paper is acceptable, though (together with quill and parchment or stylus and clay tablets) it is discouraged.

Agenda

Record keeping, introductions

The first class is always confused and chaotic as mundane tasks are completed. We will try to confine the chaos to the first half hour.Textbook

The textbook is SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com. We will use the text as a foundation and reference for grammar and style but will explore many other sources in multiple media, all of which will be supplied in our online classroom.

Discussion of class curricula

This class will focus largely upon immersion in formal academic English. The specific subject matter covered is very flexible and will be tailored to the needs and interests of the students, ranging possibly from the study of classic literature to essay writing, test-taking skills, memorization practice, note taking, debate and oratory, research paper development and may very possibly explore other entirely serendipitous and unanticipated realms.

We covered a great deal last year including three Shakespeare plays (Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, Henry V) together with some Jane Austen, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, Abraham Lincoln, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jerome K. Jerome, Maya Angelou, Bertrand Russell, David Berlinski, Thomas Paine, Douglas Adams, Kenneth Grahame, Stephen Hawking and many other greats. Please feel free to peruse last year’s postings in the assignment forum.

We engaged in debates, recitations and lectures, wrote scripts, essays, papers and narratives and were inspired by some of the greatest writers and orators of the English speaking world.

We read and studied papers in scholarly journals and practiced both writing and speaking in formal academic English.

And we had fun doing it! Now, let’s start again with new direction and enthusiasm.

Class Organization

In-class time is used only for for interactive activities: oratory, discussion and recitations and never for reading, writing, watching videos and doing assignments, all of which take place on or off-line during the week. Absent online participants will be able to take part in the in-class sessions.

Though class sessions are recorded, there is no camera in the classroom; only audio and screensharing are broadcast and archived. We just switched the class broadcasts to Google Plus last year, having previously used WiziQ. Neither is ideal as they use a technology that is perpetually in its infancy and never permitted to mature. Class recordings are unedited and often fraught with problems or wasted time as attempts are made to solve those problems. Please be indulgent.

Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore. We will use these and expand upon them.Questions, suggestions and discussion

This class is open to students of any age who are ready to work on college-level English and may be taken repeatedly as it is different every year. If you have taken the class before, please share your experiences with others, and you are welcome to join us as an advanced student as we explore new ground. Parents are always welcome.We covered a great deal last year including three Shakespeare plays (Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, Henry V) together with some Jane Austen, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, Abraham Lincoln, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jerome K. Jerome, Maya Angelou, Bertrand Russell, David Berlinski, Thomas Paine, Douglas Adams, Kenneth Grahame, Stephen Hawking and many other greats (not to mention Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Klingon version of Hamlet).

We engaged in debates, recitations and lectures and were inspired by some of the greatest writers and orators of the English speaking world.

We read and studied papers in scholarly journals and practiced both writing and speaking in formal academic English.

And we had fun!

The class uses the text: SAT, ACT TOEFL College Prep English but will cover many other things as well, to be determined by the interests and inspiration of class members. Writing and speaking skills and techniques for the felicitous presentation of cogent and compelling prose will be covered together with advanced vocabulary, language usage, comprehension, grammar and style that will serve students well in college and college credit examinations. Class members will study and emulate the work of the masters of words and will prepare and deliver scripted and improvisatory oratory in lecture, debate, interview and dramatic settings with a view to wielding language effectively.

Homeschool Class: College Credit Without Debt
A homeschool and budget-friendly approach to higher education — how to start and step-by-step support.

The cost of higher education has rendered the decision to take the traditional university approach highly dubious. Without significant scholarship or grant assistance, the benefits of a college degree often no longer justify the expense — in many cases decades of debt with no guarantee of a job or profession with which to pay it back.

There are alternative approaches to the acquisition of a degree from an accredited college, often involving online classes or independent study and taking exams. There are a couple of serious disadvantages to this approach:

Most students are not comfortable working in isolation and need some social and academic support. Homeschoolers may be better prepared than most for independent study, but success in college work is a lot to ask of a student working alone.
Much of the value of the college experience is found outside the classroom — the atmosphere of intellectual discussion and exchange among students, tutors, mentors with different fields of expertise. For many, the dormitory, quad, common room provided a larger proportion of meaningful education than did the classroom.

The College-Study Class

The purpose of such a class would be to provide support and guidance for students taking or intending to take MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and studying for credit-by-exam tests such as CLEP, DSST, Trinity College London and others. The College-Study class would help guide students in taking classes and tests and would also provide peer support from fellow students and tutoring/mentoring from experienced academics.

Format

Traditional regular classroom meetings (with broadcast and remote participation) for informal round-table academic discussion, combined with an online dorm-style commons for 24/7 exchanges, both realtime and postings. An extensive online library of resources is provided and augmented in response to needs as they arise. Suggested meeting time: Thursday evenings at Excellence In Education in Monrovia CA and broadcast with remote participation.

Subjects covered

The freshman and sophomore years consist largely of foundational generic classes required for most majors. We would expect to cover English, Math and survey classes initially though students taking a variety of subjects would certainly benefit from cross-discipline support as well.

Intended student attendees

A wide age range. My kids started college work at 10 years old and many homeschoolers (certainly most of those who’ve been in my classes at Excellence In Education) would be ready for college work long before graduating high school.

If there are interested older students, 20 and up, they would have their own meetings and forums and not necessarily mix with younger students.

Is higher education worthwhile?

The short answer is: Yes, absolutely! But it is important to understand that by “higher education” we do not mean a few years at university, a degree and then leave school never to think about those things again. A degree is just an officially sanctioned symbol; real education is so much more and it is FREE!. Classes and lectures from the greatest universities in the world are now a mouseclick away. Vast troves of history, culture, languages, arts, sciences, technology, law, commerce and religion are now universally available to anyone ready to delve into them. It’s almost criminal, certainly neglectful, one might even say irresponsible to ignore these educational opportunities that are far greater than any that have ever existed in the history of humanity.

Whether we seek official recognition for our study or not (and why not after all), this unheard of access to the ever-expanding wealth of human knowledge is just too good to pass up. Learning for the sake of learning is dreadfully undervalued in our society and culture.

The value of education for the homeschooler, unschooler and out-of-the-loop learner

As one who majored in fine arts and languages while engaging voluntarily in independent (often dormitory) study in math, logic and computer programming, and then later went on to teach computer science for many years, I appreciate the academic potentials of dormschooling probably more than most. I often found myself instigating unofficial learning forums at college — play reading, puzzle solving, music making and many other subjects less easily defined. This was truly joyful education and stood in sharp contrast to the drudgery of classwork and the onerous hours of sanctioned official study. I must admit to spending far more time on the former than the latter, on multiple occasions seeing the sun rise rather unexpectedly while engrossed in some intriguing knotty problem.

The goal of the College-Study class

With the traditional college experience becoming far less accessible than it has been in past decades, an alternative approach is indicated. This class will provide students with something approaching the real college experience — not just the classrooms — and will also support students in the acquisition of exam and degree credit as comfortably and economically as possible. We would like this generation of students, including our kids, not to miss out on the wonderful positive aspects of the college experience.